Remember that our financial experts come out of a system that is this deep underwater and they have a heavy investment is bailing it out.

Overall debt levels more than doubled from 2000 to 2011 at the more than 500 institutions rated by Moody’s, according to inflation-adjusted data compiled for The New York Times by the credit rating agency. In the same time, the amount of cash, pledged gifts and investments that colleges maintain declined more than 40 percent relative to the amount they owe.While Harvard is the wealthiest university in the country, it also has $6 billion in debt, the most of any private college, the data compiled by Moody’s shows.At the Juilliard School, which completed a major renovation a few years ago, debt climbed to $195 million last year, from $6 million in inflation-adjusted dollars in 2002. At Miami University, a public institution in Ohio that is overhauling its dormitories and student union, debt rose to $326 million in 2011, from $66 million in 2002, and at New York University, which has embarked on an ambitious expansion, debt was $2.8 billion in 2011, up from $1.2 billion in 2002, according to the Moody’s data.The pile of debt — $205 billion outstanding in 2011 at the colleges rated by Moody’s — comes at a time of increasing uncertainty in academia. After years of robust growth, enrollment is flat or declining at many institutions, particularly in the Northeast and Midwest. With outstanding student debt exceeding $1 trillion, students and their parents are questioning the cost and value of college. And online courses threaten to upend the traditional collegiate experience and payment model.

Student debt turns out to be only 5 times as high as the accumulated college debt, and that’s only at the colleges rated at Moody’s. What would happen if we added up the entire pile of debt for all institutions of higher education in the country? Somehow I think we would arrive at some very scary numbers.The system is broken and spending its way deeper into debt. Tuition costs have risen dramatically and hardly made a dent in the tremendous piles of debt accumulated over the last decade.It would seem as if Academia’s brokenness amplifies the brokenness of its graduates. It acts as a predictor for the entire broken system. Academia is a deadbeat metaphor turning out deadbeat students in a deadbeat nation.

Harvard borrowed $1.5 billion to pay its bills rather than selling off assets at a sharp discount. Its interest expense more than doubled from fiscal 2008 to fiscal 2011, to nearly $300 million.

“The financial crisis has acted like a tidal wave that, as it receded, exposed certain vulnerabilities with a new clarity,” Harvard officials said in the November annual report.

Nearly 16 months after first pledging to help Egypt’s failing economy, the Obama administration is nearing an agreement with the country’s new government to relieve $1 billion of its debt as part of an American and international assistance package intended to bolster its transition to democracy, administration officials said.The administration’s efforts, delayed by Egypt’s political turmoil and by wariness in Washington about new leaders emerging from its first free elections, gained new urgency in recent weeks, even as the United States risks losing influence and investment opportunities to countries like China, which President Mohamed Morsi chose for his first official visit outside of the Middle East.In addition to the debt assistance, the administration has thrown its support behind a $4.8 billion loan being negotiated between Egypt and the International Monetary Fund. Last week it dispatched the first of two official delegations to work out details of the proposed debt assistance, as well as $375 million in financing and loan guarantees for American financiers who invest in Egypt and a $60 million investment fund for Egyptian businesses.The assistance underscores the importance of shoring up Egypt at a time of turmoil and change across the Middle East, from the relatively peaceful uprisings in Egypt and Tunisia to the still-unfinished transition in Libya, and from the showdown over Iran’s nuclear program to the war in Syria. Given Egypt’s influence in the Arab world, the officials said, its economic recovery and political stability could have a profound influence on other nations in transition and ease wariness in Israel about the tumultuous political changes under way.

There’s just one small catch…. Congress has put some restrictions in place on aid to Egypt.

The administration is negotiating whether to waive some debt payments altogether or allow “debt swaps,” in which the money that would otherwise pay down the American debt instead is spent on training and infrastructure projects in Egypt intended to attract private investment and create jobs. Congress has attached conditions to American assistance in Egypt, requiring Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton to certify, among other things, that the country continues to abide by its treaty with Israel.American and Israeli officials, including Ambassador Michael Oren, have sought to assure members of Congress that assistance should proceed, despite reservations about the Muslim Brotherhood’s political rise, the officials said.They have argued that persistently high unemployment, especially among women and young people, could undermine Mr. Morsi’s government, causing further instability in Egypt and beyond. “Things are going to head in the wrong direction if you don’t find a way to create jobs,” another administration official said, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss the administration’s internal strategy.

I wonder whether Egypt’s liberal democracy advocates agree with that assessment. Hmmm……Obama: “But I’m also mindful of the proverb, “A man is judged by his deeds, not his words.” So if you want to know where my heart lies, look no further than what I have done — to stand up for Israel.”Read the full story

As the chart shows, America’s debt is currently $15.1 trillion, while the Eurozone (which includes France, Germany, Greece, Italy, Spain, the U.K., and others) has a combined debt of $12.7 trillion. (All dollar amounts are in U.S. dollars, and the data refers to closing 2011 numbers.)

What policies are responsible… because obviously nationality has little to do with the issue. The debt has risen starting with Clinton, W Bush and Obama, though Obama’s debt is about double of Bush’s and Clinton’s.

The community activism worked out great… didn’t it? It’s kind of like Woodstock… er Woodstock 99. Thanks hippies. Thanks for taking the advice of Yoko Ono. Peace!

(h/t ibloga) CNN: In 2008, the youth vote helped sweep Barack Obama into office. Americans 18-29 spread the word on social media, energized fundraising and went to the polls. In 2012, the youth vote is moving on and throwing those omnipresent “Hope” bumper stickers and t-shirts in garbage bins.Not because of apathy. Not because another candidate generates more enthusiasm. Not because of his character. Not because they think voting is pointless. The 18-29 vote is up for grabs in 2012 because youth can’t afford cars to put bumper stickers on and those t-shirts are worn out from too many days sitting on the couch unemployed. The sobering reality: just 55.3 percent of Americans between 16 and 29 have jobs. And earlier this year, Americans’ student loan debt surpassed credit card debt for the first time ever. Rather than develop a lasting initiative to help young unemployed Americans, the President launched “Greater Together” – a campaign tool that offers community forums rather than jobs. Rather than provide a bailout to those crushed by the burden of educational loans, his student debt relief program was pathetic – only reducing interest rates by a measly 0.5 percent. No wonder less than half of Americans 18-29 approve of Obama.

.…yeah… thanks hippies. thanks for all the “Activism”. Thanks for keeping your youth occupied… might be nice to pay us or we will kill you. You want to know what youth do who have nothing but community activism? well… um… Hie Dee Ho! They start raping your daughters! oh… won’t the feminists on the left be pleased… and that will of course will lead to a Leftist Police state full of feminine hysteria. Oh,,, but the ladies are the one segment of the population who have jobs because of the service sector. The vaginas will be doing just fine… if they can make it to work without getting raped. Oh, and those police officers that they hire to keep the youth from raping the laides… oh… they are corrupt and cheat on you. sigh… it will make monogamy completely unsustainable… and that will lead to more panic… and fear. And of course you will blame a blogger like me and ship me off to Washington State for pointing out the reality here…. but nothing to see here. nothing at all. move along…

I differ with Newsbuster and Maddow. The S and P most certainly is pointing fingers at our leader’s inability to cooperate. This does not mean the S and P is right about that analysis. Trust me… I’m not biased… these are the words I see… and I don’t particularly like Maddow… though she is showing once again that even though I don’t like her politics or her snide attitude, she is a very effective debator and certainly is denying a correlative to skew the truth. The denied correlative is that the S and P is full of SH*T!

Here is what Newsbuster quotes from the S&amp;amp;P:· We have lowered our long-term sovereign credit rating on the United States of America to ‘AA+’ from ‘AAA’ and affirmed the ‘A-1+’ short-term rating.· We have also removed both the short- and long-term ratings from CreditWatch negative.· The downgrade reflects our opinion that the fiscal consolidation plan that Congress and the Administration recently agreed to falls short of what, in our view, would be necessary to stabilize the government’s medium-term debt dynamics.· More broadly, the downgrade reflects our view that the effectiveness, stability, and predictability of American policymaking and political institutions have weakened at a time of ongoing fiscal and economic challenges to a degree more than we envisioned when we assigned a negative outlook to the rating on April 18, 2011.· Since then, we have changed our view of the difficulties in bridging the gulf between the political parties over fiscal policy, which makes us pessimistic about the capacity of Congress and the Administration to be able to leverage their agreement this week into a broader fiscal consolidation plan that stabilizes the government’s debt dynamics any time soon.· The outlook on the long-term rating is negative. We could lower the long-term rating to ‘AA’ within the next two years if we see that less reduction in spending than agreed to, higher interest rates, or new fiscal pressures during the period result in a higher general government debt trajectory than we currently assume in our base case.

Michael McConnell, a leading First Amendment scholar (who is now at Stanford) and former Tenth Circuit judge (2002–2009), praises Larry Tribe’s stand on the constitutionality of the debt ceiling (see, for instance, this guest post). An excerpt from Prof. McConnell’s post at Advancing a Free Society:A week ago Washington was abuzz with the seemingly nifty idea that Section Four of the Fourteenth Amendment could empower the President to borrow money above the debt ceiling, without congressional authorization. Now the idea seems to be dead. Not only has Secretary Geithner’s lawyer repudiated the suggestion, but the Secretary has denied he ever even floated the idea.Part of the reason this idea lost favor is that it was wrong on the merits. But it helped – maybe even decisively – that Professor Laurence Tribe, professor at Harvard Law School and well-known Obama enthusiast, stood up and publicly denounced the faulty constitutional interpretation on which it rested, in an op-ed in the New York Times.Professor Tribe deserves praise for this. It is not easy for a prominent intellectual to pull the rug out from under a political scheme of his allies, especially in a high-stakes partisan confrontation like the debt ceiling talks in Washington, where the Administration would dearly love to neutralize the leverage the debt ceiling gives Congress to force budgetary reform. This is what distinguishes a scholar from a hack: the willingness to analyze a question dispassionately and tell the truth even when it is politically inconvenient. via volokh.comif (WIDGETBOX) WIDGETBOX.renderWidget(‘d9f1befa-40d5-4a45-9fbc-88cc0c436176’);

The federal debt increased $54.1 billion in the eight days preceding the deal made by President Barack Obama, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D.-Nev.) and House Speaker John Boehner (R.-Ohio) to cut $38.5 billion in federal spending for the remainder of fiscal year 2011, which runs through September. The debt was $14.2101 trillion on March 30, according to the Bureau of the Public Debt, and $14.2642 on April 7. Since the beginning of the fiscal year on Oct. 1, 2010, the national debt has increase by $653.4 billion. via CNSNews.com and eye-on-the-world.blogspot.com